Representational Tensions in students' Discourses while completing experimental Physics activities

Abstract: Based on the theory of codes by Basil Bernstein, Andréia de Oliveira presents the concept of Tension in Discourses to designate the discontinuities between the different discourses present in educational practice, characterized by contradictions, ruptures and dilemmas that are generated by spaces that separate the categories of specialized discourses. In this paper, we analyze the representational tensions manifested in students' discourses when they performed experimental activities in a didactic physics laboratory. These tensions are characterized by showing the contradictions, ruptures, dilemmas, conflicts and uncertainties when data coming from experimental activities are contrasted with the concepts present in theoretical classes, thus causing an isolation in the internal discourse about physics to become evident. We found that the students revealed these tensions at the moments when they represented the measures with their uncertainties, when they transformed units of measurement and their uncertainties, and when they registered the number of decimal places and of significant algorithms for the measurements and their uncertainties.